HP: Do some QC on your LCDs!!

What an "interesting" time I'm having with my new 8710p.

Now, HP seem to have good after-sales service.. easy to deal with, and problems get "resolved" fairly quickly. But that's providing crappy components don't cause more problems than they fix!

My 8710p had the old uneven-backlight problem, which seems fairly common: Dark corners and light leakage from the bottom, which really let down the nice LG/LPLF700 screen it came with.

I politely complained to HP who, without so much as a blink, send a tech to swap it out. Excellent. Tech arrives, great guy, very good at what he does. I ask what manufacturer of LCD he is going to install, he has no idea. HP don't document the brand on the box the notebook top panel comes in. No model number, no indication at all. Don't they care what they put their brand name on?

He installs it, we fire it up and great, no more light leakage. But then I notice the infamous "grain" on the picture, like the screen is coated in very fine crystal sand. The original LG screen was smooth as silk, this one looks terrible. Then the screen saver comes on (which is the black-with-windows-logo one) and we notice the screen is "shimmering" slightly, like TV's do when there's interference around.

I check the manufacturer of the replacement screen - SEC4347 (a Seiko Epson or some say Samsung). Which means they've not only replaced my top-notch LG screen (minus backlight issue) with a lower quality brand, the unit itself wouldn't even pass QC! Is that supposed to be good service?

I'm going to ride them like a pony until this is resolved in a professional way. HP should re-assess where they source their screens from and do some real QC, not pass out rubbish hoping the customer won't notice.

So, while waiting on HP for the next round of LCD Roulette, it's back to using my 5-year-old ASUS M4N, whose still-superior screen continues to sneer smugly at my shiny new, but as yet useless, 8710p.

 

HA HA HA, very interesting indeed. Well I've had my own....issues with HP, and PLEASE GOD DO NOT GET ME STARTED!!!! Anyways yeah, that's the problem with notebooks is that the monitor could be from anywhere. Very annoying.

Best of luck to getting HP to get their act together!

 

I've followed your post from here to WP and back here again and I understand your concerns. Unfortunately, this is exactly how HP works. As these are business notebooks, enterprise customers rarely complain about screen issues like this and the HP rep I've dealt with told me as long as no major account customers complain (they are enterprises who purchase by the thousands), the issue will be logged as a non-issue. Your issue would definitely fall under a "just replace screen until customer is satisfied" category.

Production issues have also become increasingly out of HP's control as there really isn't any easy way for their support reps to inform their ODM of the issue. There is a serious communication breakdown at that point, so their support reps have no way to just phone Shanghai and say "Look, this is the problem and you need to fix it". That's what happens when you outsource 100% of your production. HP lacks a dedicated customer relationship channel for their PC line like Dell's Direct and Lenovo's blogs.

 

Hi Chrixx, very interesting point about outsourcing and communication. If product coherency is so troubled, they'd be up the creek if their main revenue source was the enthusiast crowd, like the smaller boutique companies. Lucky for HP, there's probably as much separation between corporate end-users and their IT dept, as between HP and their component suppliers.

Lucky for me too, maybe. I don't mind playing LCD roulette until I get what I want. The HP tech on the phone even said (and I roughly quote), "unfortunately we have no way of knowing what LCD m'fer ends up in our panels but if it's not up to expectations once it's installed, lodge a complaint and we'll sort out another one for you."

A company requesting I lodge a complaint if I'm not happy - now that's what I call service!

 

Yea. I heard the same thing. That hp doesn't know what company the lcd's are. Pretty sad if you ask me

 

I agree, that is pretty sad. BUT, because most notebooks are outsourced, it is rather difficult to determine what manufacturer made the LCD screen on your notebook.

 

Yes, HP's customer service is top notch in Asia Pacific. The horror stories you hear about in the US seldom apply here as HP operates its own support centre.
The 8510 series on the other hand has been solid, the screen is of very good quality and even much brighter than the previous generation nc8430.

 

My DV9700T has had some leakage and an obvious dead pixel near it since day 1. I'm still in my 21 days so I've got my RMA # and the sucker's going back today.

I hope you get your problem resolved soon. Nothing like getting a replacement that's lower quality than you started with.

 

Hp needs to stick to one LCD company

 

This won't happen because having different suppliers is an important business practice in the big ODM business. They allow HP's ODMs to drive down prices as suppliers compete to fulfil orders and it prevents them from being held up by a single supplier when there is a pricing, parts shortage or quality issue.

 

Quoted for truth.

I've debated on whether or not to have my nw8440's screen replaced. It's dim, has some minor light leakage on the bottom, but worst of all, seems to have dirt within the LCD! Unfortunately, I don't think the help desk at my school will replace it .

 

its extremely hard to tell what HP gives you for a LCD screen but as far as i know i have a AUO screen also used in the Asus G2 Dual Baklamps and so far no issues

 

Ok, just had the panel swapped out again, with another LG/LPLF700. Nice looking screen, still some leak at the bottom but not too bad.

However it also exhibits the "colour fringing" problem I've seen now in 3 panels on this machine. See here for details: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=212066

I'm starting to think this fringing problem is a bug with the Quadro 320M card. In resolutions below 1280x800, there is no fringing. From 1280 up, fringing is terrible (see pic in the above thread).

This is despite the fact that an external panel, plugged into the laptop, is totally crisp and sharp in all resolutions - which made me initially think the GPU was ok and blame the panel. Now I'm starting to think it's the GPU, because the same "cut-off point" for fringing starts at 1280x800 in all 3 panels I've now had.

Is it possible that the Quadro 320M behaves differently on the in-built panel than on an external panel? Could there be a bug in one of the two hardware streams it uses for internal and external display output?